


clear as day

by rain_at_dawn



Series: stars, scattered [20]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Band Fic, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_at_dawn/pseuds/rain_at_dawn
Summary: 12. things you said when you thought i was asleep
Relationships: Kim Kibum | Key/Lee Jinki | Onew
Series: stars, scattered [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608877
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	clear as day

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by @kibaem_ah on Twitter

As usual, a brief hour of leisure turns into a nap for Jinki. He dreams a lonely dream, one that takes ages to end. In that time, he swears he hears a voice:

_“Hey. Yeongam.”_

Kibum’s presence is an uncertain flicker, licking at the corners of his sleepy state. Jinki normally wouldn’t pay it much heed, except that it’s Kibum. When he’d been younger – not so long ago, now that he really thinks about it – sleep would arrive and depart on light feet. As a working idol besieged by schedules at all hours, sleep had devolved into a commodity, more or less.

Despite its current scarcity, Jinki likes to think that he knows sleep inside and out, just as well as he knows his dreams; even when it seems to wriggle out of his reach, the in-between state before wakefulness turning his senses to jelly.

_“I like you.”_

Jinki twitches sleepily, the side of his face too comfortably warmed by his pillow to take Kibum’s words seriously. At least Kibum was as straightforward as ever, even in Jinki’s half-dreams; he’s always appreciated that much about him.

The dream melds into a thought; a memory. Last night on the balcony, Kibum’s profile had been bathed in Tokyo city lights, sometimes an effervescent white highlighting his brow, sometimes a fluorescent pink from the opposite billboard sign dusting his cheekbones. Kibum had looked divine; that felt like the exact right word, then and now. If Kibum would intrude further into Jinki’s dreams like a mysterious, beautiful stranger, Jinki wouldn’t mind, no matter how often it happened.

_“I really like you. I really mean it.”_

That was just the way things came full circle in dreams; Jinki really liked Kibum too. Perhaps more than Kibum realized. The illusion was nice while it lasted; he would really have to wake up and face reality in a few minutes, and go back to merely liking Kibum as a member and a friend. 

Things were better and safer in dreams; Jinki didn’t have to worry about his feelings boiling over in nuclear force, especially in a season like winter, where warmth was always left to brew beneath a few layers. As long as he could hear Kibum’s voice repeat those words right back to him in those dreams, Jinki wouldn’t mind loving him from as far as the space between their two beds in the hotel room they shared on tour.

But the dream gives way to light; dawn is approaching, wakefulness is gradually encroaching. A cupboard door opens and shuts, and then the sound of running water follows. Kibum is awake before him, which is strange. Both of them tend to sleep in for as long as they’re allowed, not at all fans of any early warm morning welcome kisses from the sun. If Kibum is awake…

Jinki shifts his eyelids open and listens. Except there isn’t much to hear, except the soft patter of Kibum’s slippers on the carpeted floor. Kibum is quiet and the pensiveness of that kind of quiet is an echo big enough to fill Jinki’s ears.

As his vision comes into focus – without the aid of contact lenses notwithstanding – Jinki can tell that Kibum has worn the complimentary white hotel-robe over his pajamas. A few more seconds of squinting tells him that Kibum’s hair is damp, probably from a shower. That’s the only time Jinki has seen the ends curl like that, without whatever product or treatment that had been worked into it by one of their hairstylists.

He watches Kibum walk up to the sliding glass door that separates the room from the balcony and takes in the fuzzy outline of his silhouette in the dim, grey light. It must be the smog; Tokyo’s had a lot of it recently. He’d better let Kibum know, just in case he was thinking of stepping out. A part of Jinki _knows_ that Kibum would obviously know better.

But he wants to talk to him anyway.

Thank god for the carpet’s warmth. Thank the bad weather in Tokyo for the lack of glare in his eyes from the sun. Thank whatever turn of luck had landed him a room with Kibum on a morning like this. Thank the shadows that gave him room to hide the concern on his face.

When Jinki approaches Kibum, he does so with care. A moment like this comes rarely; on mornings like these, Kibum’s cheeks are puffy and he still smells like sleep (and whatever fabric softener went into the pillow he’d laid his head on). Kibum is unguarded enough that his face seems lineless and the years he’s put behind him unapparent on his features. He wears the exact type of expression Jinki sometimes dreams of; the same type he’s still dying to get a read on when they’re awake.

Kibum’s eyes are clear enough that Jinki imagines he sees himself reflected in them and his voice is rough when he finally speaks: “What?”

“Good morning.” Jinki smiles in return.

And then, silence again. Maybe it was just another case of wrong timing; Jinki knows he’s done worse by not saying anything at all.

“Jinki?”

“Yeah?” He’ll be the first to admit that he’s the type of guy that melts instantly when Kibum, of all people, calls him by his name. And Kibum must have had a lot of guys to melt with a stare like the one he gives Jinki now.

“Did I talk in my sleep last night?”

“Could be. I might’ve dreamt it.”

Kibum crosses his arms and doesn’t contradict him. Just saying that had made Jinki’s heart sink; for as old as Kibum’s dubbed him, he still likes to believe that dreams could come true. He’s abnormally attracted to clichés in that way, perhaps the very same ones Kibum himself cherishes from a childhood raised on Disney movies.

Perhaps. Perhaps, perhaps. One day, Jinki would come clean.

“Was it a good dream then?”

“It’s always the same one.”

“Answer me for once, won’t you?”

Jinki meets Kibum’s stare and takes a long, deep breath before he does just that.


End file.
